The Colds
by Sporadic-Tiger
Summary: Anna and Elsa get sick, and each takes care of the other in turn.
1. The Reverse Cold

A pair of sisters are in the meadow, the younger redhead standing like she would embrace the sun if she could, and the older blonde sitting a small distance away.

"See, Elsa? The sun isn't bad at all, and..." Anna turns around and stops immediately after seeing her sister's condition. Elsa's skin is tomato red from sunburn, and her nostrils are running snot uncontrollably. She is trembling and doesn't look pleased at all. She sniffs up the snot loudly.  
>"... Anna... Can we go home now?" Elsa asks miserably. Anna stands, wide eyed.<br>"Uhm... Yeah. Yeah, we can do that..." Anna shakes her head quickly to get over the shock of the state of her sister. "I mean, wow, what happened?" She rushes to her sister's side and helps her up.

"I... I think-" Elsa begins, but is cut off as she sneezes loudly, "I think it's a reverse cold."  
>"A... reverse cold?" Anna asks. They begin their way back to the castle as Elsa nods.<br>"People are normally warm, but I'm normally cold, so too much warmth might make me sick... I used to wonder as a child, but now I..." She sniffs hard, "I guess I know."  
>"AND I got you sunburned... I should have thought about that at least... I'm sorry Elsa... I promise, I'll get you healthy again, okay?" Anna says, carefully supporting her sister as they walk.<br>"OOOWW! Not there, Anna!" Elsa shouts as Anna tries to find a good place for her arm.  
>"Sorry! Sorry! How about there?" Anna asks, moving some.<br>"... That's better." Elsa smiles gently, almost to herself. _At least I'm immune to blushing for the next week or so..._she thinks_  
><em>-  
>"Eeeeeellllsaaaaaaa~~~" Elsa hears Anna's voice from down the hall nearly a week later. Elsa's sickness has begun to fade, and her sunburn is gone; her skin has returned to its naturally pale shade. She smiles at her open book as she hears footsteps growing louder.<br>_Knock knock knockknock knock  
><em>Anna's knock. Elsa shuts her book and looks to the door.  
>"Come in, Anna." she calls. The door opens, Anna walking in with what smells like chicken soup and dressed in maid's attire. "Anna...?"<br>"Elsa! You're at the shade where I can tell where you're blushing again! That's good!" Anna grins, a sly glint only in her eye.  
>"You... why are you wearing that?" Elsa asks, flustered.<br>"Because if you're well soon, then I might not ever get the chance again! I wanted to try it at least once!" Anna explains. Elsa shakes her head slowly. But that's Anna for you. Always curious, a little odd, kind, caring, cute, and more pretty than people give her credit for... wait, what? "Elsa? Are you feeling better today, or worse, because you look pretty flustered. Are you okay?"  
>"I-I'm fine. I'm actually feeling really good today." Elsa answers, regaining her composure.<br>"Great! Anyway, it's lunch time, so I have some warm chicken soup for you." Anna says, bringing the soup over.  
>"Oh, warm! That's good!" Elsa smirks at her sister.<br>"HEY! You said it was a REVERSE cold! Warm soup helps normal colds! What was I supposed to think?" Anna retorts, getting a little embarrassed herself now, and Elsa giggles.  
><em>God, even her giggles are regal...<em> Anna witnesses Elsa's giggle, the way she gracefully shuts her eyes and barely covers her mouth. Anna bites her lip, blushing a little herself now.  
>"Anna... It's okay. Really. You had the best intentions. And after learning, you still stuck by your promise." Elsa says while reaching to take the soup. Anna smiles and hands it over slowly.<br>"Careful. The bowl's hot..." The redhead warns, but as Elsa takes it, a thin layer of ice creeps along the bottom, "... or not." She pauses. She wants to stay, but knows that sticking around to watch her sister eat is a little weird. So she nervously starts letting words flow, with a general point in her head, "So... uh, if you need anything else, just..." she turns her head and cones her hands against her mouth "give me a holler! … Heh heh..." She shuffles a little, "I'll go then... I have... um... stuff that needs doing, and-"  
>"Anna." Elsa says, smiling, her eyes still on the steaming soup. "Would you like to stay?"<br>"YES!" Anna blurts a little too eagerly, "I mean, yes, I would... like to stay. Is that weird? I hope that's not weird, because, I wouldn't want you thinking that I'm heh heh _weird_... But I am though, not normal, I guess, and-"  
>"Anna." Elsa interrupts her again, this time smiling at her, "It's not weird. I... want you here too."<br>Anna smiles widely and takes a seat.  
>As she watches Elsa, she thinks back to when the reverse cold was worse, and she got to see a side of Elsa she hadn't seen before...<br>-A few days before-

Anna knocks at the door, and walks in briefly afterward, warm soup her her hands.  
>"Elsa? Are you awake?" She whispers in the the freezing room. Elsa groans from under her covers and rolls over. The top of her silver-blonde mane and her intense blue eyes peer weakly at Anna from over the blankets. Her forehead is still a little too pink.<br>"I brought you some soup... you can eat it whenever you like." Anna says, coming to the nightstand to set it close to her sister, "Just try not to take too long, okay? It'll get cold fast in here." she turns to leave, still feeling guilty for getting her sister so sick.  
>"A-Anna..." She hears from Elsa's bed a raspy tone, accompanied by a light cough. "I... need more tissues. But for now, could you stay for a bit? Please?" Anna smiles weakly.<br>"Of course." she pulls up a seat and sets herself in it.  
>"Th-thank you..." Elsa says, then dives under her covers as she sneezes, peaking back out in the same manner just after. "I... hate being taken care of, and this room has become suffocating after spending years in it, but... thank you."<br>"Do you wanna use mine instead?" Anna offers.  
>"N-no, I," Elsa sniffs hard again, "I don't wanna freeze your room too... there's all kinds of water damage involved and occasionally mold so," her eyes shut as she coughs a spell, "I couldn't... but thank you."<br>"So then I'll stay. That's why you want me here, right? Because it's only bad when you're alone." Anna states. Elsa looks down, and then nods weakly.  
>"I'll get your tissues in a bit, okay? But first, I think some company is overdue. Don't you?" Anna smiles at the eyes peeping at her. Elsa nods again.<br>"Thank you..." she says, as the eyes fall shut and her breathing becomes more rhythmic.


	2. The Normal Cold

A loud sneeze echoes from Anna's side of the bed, jarring Elsa awake.  
>"Anna?" she says, her voice a little grumbly from having just woken up, but fully awake, "Are you..."<br>"Sick... Yeah, looks like it..." Anna replies, rolling over to face her sister. She looks paler than normal, and sniffs.  
>"It's... because of all this time in close proximity to me, isn't it?" Elsa asks, her eyes drifting downward.<br>"Hey. I can't say that it's not, but it's more than a fair trade for how happy you make me." Anna tells her sister, cupping her hand on Elsa's cheek. Elsa blushes lightly and looks back up. "Being naked all the time probably doesn't help..." Anna comments in a playful tone.  
>"Whoa whoa. I'm not to blame for that. You're the one who starts it most the time." Elsa smirks at her sister.<br>"Most of the time... sure, if by that you mean 'almost none of the time'." Anna says innocently, letting out a light cough afterward.  
>"If by that we've switched the subject to being who <em>finishes <em>it." Elsa quips, smirking still, moving to get out of bed.  
>"No!" Anna shouts, clinging to Elsa. Her throat forces out a coughing fit at the sudden strain, and Elsa freezes in mid movement. "...Stay a bit? Please?" Anna asks, looking up at her sister. "I know you don't have anything pressing to take care of right now, and I also know you'll want to immediately get whatever you feel you need to take care of me, but... please stay? Just a little longer?" Elsa smiles gently.<br>"Of course." Elsa answers, moving back into her sister's arms.  
>"Yaaaaayyy~~" Anna softly proclaims, squeezing Elsa close. Anna's breathing falls into a steady pattern. "I took your cold, you know..."<br>"What?" Elsa asks, her eyebrows coming together as her lips curl up in a slightly entertained smile.  
>"In order to get over a cold, you need to give it to someone else..." Anna explains, obviously drifting back to sleep as she tightens her hold on Elsa, "I took yours..."<br>"... So I could get better." Elsa finishes. Anna is asleep again. "For someone who used to need to be awake with the sky..." she pauses to kiss her sister on the forehead, "You sure sleep a lot now." She smiles and drifts off herself, carried by her sister's calm breathing.

- A few days later-  
>Elsa stands in front of Anna's door, small snowflakes gliding through the air around her. A few melt in the steam of the soup in her hands, her face full of concern. She's wearing a pair of gloves to make sure the soup stays warm.<br>_I made her sick in the first place... _Elsa thinks, _I should leave her be so she can get better faster..._

She looks down to the soup. _But... she wants me around. She knows I want to take care of her... I can't leave her alone again. _She takes a deep breath and remembers the feelings that consume her during nights spent with her sister. Talking, cuddling, staring into her peacefully sleeping face. She clings to the last image and smiles, making her smile in her mind's eye. She imagines using precise fingers to brush the stray red strands of hair from Anna's face, and let's the warmth produced as a result melt the last of her doubts and the tiny winter that had been following her around since she had been in the kitchen.  
>She knocks on the door. A loud, but broken<br>"Come iiinn~~~" followed by a loud hard coughing fit comes from the other side of the door. Elsa reaches for the door, but pauses as a rather noisy purging of the nostrils takes place. She blinks, amazed that her little sister could produce what sounded like a copious amount of snot. She smiles again and opens the door.  
>"Hello An-" Elsa is interrupted by Anna blowing her nose again from in the bed.<br>"Elsa! Hi!" Anna chirps like a bluejay during puberty, then coughs again, "Is that lunch for me? Awwww, You shouldn't have-" She stops suddenly as she eyes the soup.  
>"Anna?" Elsa asks nervously as Anna squints at the soup, "Is something wrong?"<p>

"Elsa..." Anna says as her gaze raises to her sister's face, her own looking like she might start crying all of a sudden, "Why are you wearing those gloves?"  
>"Oh... these? I just... wanted to make sure your soup stayed warm, that's all..." Elsa responds, her eyes wandering around the room.<br>"Take them off." Anna tells the queen, "I know why you used to wear them. I know you wore them every time Mama and Papa came to see you. I know what they mean, Elsa, take them off!"  
>"Anna, please, you're making a big deal about nothing..." Elsa calmly set down the soup and removes the gloves, but she sees the bottom of her vision waver as her eyes teared up slightly. Deep down, she knows Anna is right. It was hard for her to put them on, but she knew it was the only way to preserve what she had made for Anna.<br>"Your eyes say I'm right." Anna comments, smiling weakly, "I would rather have cold soup than make you feel restrained; before making you remember what it was like to be so alone all the time. I mean," She smiles a little wider, "at least I had the paintings to talk to." Elsa blinks as to break the tears from her eyes, as she giggles a little.  
>"... You're so weird." Elsa states, smiling.<br>"I know." Anna says, matter of factly, puffing her chest out a little "And I also know that you should totally feed that soup to me." Elsa blushes.  
>"Really, Anna, we're too old for-"<br>"And as you grazed your fingers across my ribcage," Anna interrupts, reading from an imaginary book, "I moaned, and the sound of my pleasured utterance drove you to the brink of madness." she looks up at Elsa, "Sound about right?" Elsa's face is bright red now. She looks to the side.  
>"Fine. I'll feed you the soup."<br>"Yisssss~" Anna cheers. Then snorts, super unattractively. Elsa can't help but smile. She pulls the chair close to her sister's bed, and reaches for the soup. Before she can even think it, Anna interjects the idea, "And don't you dare put those gloves back on!" Elsa pauses now, and she knows she was about to think it.  
>"... Thank you, Anna." Elsa says, simply picking up the soup. Anna smiles wide.<br>"You're welcome." Anna says. Elsa sits and lifts the full spoon to Anna.  
>"Say 'ahhhh', Ahhhhnna." She tells her, grinning.<br>"Ha ha, so you think you're funny." Anna says, rolling her eyes with a lopsided smile, "Ahhhh~" she opens her mouth wide. Elsa gets closer when Anna continues, "AHHH" she turns completely away suddenly and sneezes, holding nothing back, covering what she can with her left arm. She doesn't turn back, but instead is totally still.  
>"Anna...?" Elsa asks, concerned.<br>"Elsa... Hand me a tissue, please. Over my shoulder, but don't look, this is reeeeally gross over here."  
>Elsa puts down the soup and complies for now, trying not to laugh. <p>


End file.
